Drawing in the Making Process

Artists have used drawings to form paintings for centuries and it’s interesting to trace the earliest doodles through to the compositional designs. We can learn so much about an artist’s different ideas, which in turn helps us to interpret the finished product. Sketchbooks are a vital measure of this process but sadly they had a poor survival rate in the Renaissance and Baroque period. David Jaffe was educated at the University of Melbourne and at The Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where he received a master’s degree in art history in 1978. During his tenure as curator at Australia’s National Gallery, from 1982-90, he was in charge of temporary exhibitions and acquisitions of European art.